This post is the first of a series of studies on the Norwegian Education System.

Norway is famous for free education. Since Norway became a country in 1905, it has focused on developing a country of equality, which included creating an education system centred on equality. An ‘equality’ education meant that everyone was entitled to the same education no matter their socioeconomic state. This was a triumph for equality but as proven over the years, has become a trial for a quality education.

Since my daughter, Lilu, has started barnehagen (kindergarten), I have been very keen on learning about the Norwegian Education System. I know both the Australian and British Education Systems and I am a teacher myself. I currently teach at an Arts school in Northern Norway where I am developing a program that has been absent for the past ten years. Working in the public sector means I become involved with the politics of both the city and Norway.

The past year I have sat in many meetings discussing the absence of the Arts in compulsory school, grades one to ten. For the last 15 years, ‘real’ Arts has had no place in Norwegian schooling. General teachers have been the ones to facilitate a far from desirable arts course that has been more about meeting criteria (specifically for handcrafts) than discovering the world of music, theatre and visual art. Specialised teachers in the Arts are rarely employed in compulsory school. Through school results, numerous studies and even a reprimand from the OECD, (an international organisation for economic cooperation and development – education being their primary focus) Norway is finally waking up to the fact that their free equality education system is failing and that the lack of ‘real’ Arts might be a contributing factor.

What I have discovered from my personal research and my involvement with Norwegian education has alarmed me. I am scared for my children’s education. Already as a parent I am being told by barnehagen staff not to advance my child too much in reading and writing (Lilu is four and learning to spell) because she will ‘get bored in school and then won’t want to participate’. The Norwegian Education System has to change to be a contender in a globalised world but for Norway to be competitive, it will have its greatest struggle in changing the ‘equality-indulgent’ population towards quality education.

Over the next month I will be presenting different ideas about the Norwegian Education System in a series of posts. Norway is being pressured from the international community to lift its game and Norway is gasping for any quick fix it can lay its hands on. The problems in the education system in Norway are long term. It will only get worse before it will get better and so this next generation will be lost to the wind. In the coming years Norway will produce one of the greatest numbers of highly educated unemployed in the world.

Hi, I’m from Canada and am going to teachers college in Oslo now, ready to teach math at the secondary school level this fall. If you lament over the quality of arts education in Norway, you would understand how I feel about the Norwegian math education. Looking forward to reading the rest of your series.

The Norwegian Education System does not encourage students to learn, especially those with talent. They are put into the same bucket with those who are weaker than them. This is not a surprise since Norway thrives on equality in all matters. It’s interesting to see how Norway is going to maintain this system in the future when much of its natural resources are used up.

But the government knows that education is vital for the future of Norway. They put a lot of effort and money into education. That’s why Norway is on top of other oil rich countries in the PISA test from OECD. But PISA result alone cannot guarantee us a better future. They have to do more.

One of the biggest problems in Norwegian Education System is teachers! They’re just simply outdated for today’s facebook, twitter generation. Most of the teachers in our school are in their 50s and 60s. They need to be upgraded technically. I think this is in the progress since teachers from our school went on computer training last month.

Teaching profession is not that appreciated in Norway and teachers earn less than those working in other sectors. I’ve noticed recently that the Norwegian government is speeding up in recruitment of new teachers by advertising on social networking sites, including Spotify. They have been working on this after a report from OECD about Norwegian education system was handed to the government.

It’s not late. If the government starts working on some of these problems from now, I think we even can catch Finland students. Norske er flinke!

Qualified teachers is a big issue in Norway. A lot of ‘teachers’ don’t have a teachers qualification in rural areas. They started out as teaching assistances and then over the years became ‘teachers’ because there was no one else. Moose was studying teaching at uni and in his class were many non-educated teachers taking the course because the government had finally made a rule that a person cannot be a teacher without a qualification. Crazy stuff.

I’m looking forward to reading your series! As a foreigner teaching in a middle school here in Norway, I’ve experienced quite a lot of stupid challenges. I’ll try to come back and comment as soon as I get some more time!

No offense, but there is a huge difference in resources from Alta to other areas in Norway (as should not come as a surprise).

Personally, I had a plethora of professional artists as teachers when what I really needed was a better math teacher. This became blatantly obviously when I studied abroad later.

The OECD critique has more to do with the lack of skill in hard sciences and math seen in teachers than in the lack of arts.

Though I’m sure you have a point regarding the conditions in Alta, but then that may have something to do people up north not having the luxury of employing full time artists. Rather busy not freezing to death

____________________from L-Jay:

I’m guessing you haven’t read the 190 page document on Arts and Cultural Education in Norway presented by the OECD rep Anne Bamford this month. ;).

I haven’t always lived in Alta. I’ve taught/lived in Oslo, Harstad and Tromsø also. A lot of my research is actually from reports and stats from other areas of Norway such as Bergen and Stavanger. Even though I am an Arts teacher, Moose is a Maths and Science teacher so I think I get a good perspective (it always drove him nuts that the school always chose to have swimming during his science class time…lol).

A lot of what is to come in my posts is about recent reports and studies on graduation numbers, uneducated teachers and just how the Norwegian ideology of schooling has effected the educated here.

At last! I totally agree with EVERYTHING you say!
As a Uk mum, with obviously older children than yourself, I have been alarmed at the norwegian interpretation of ´careers´education!
NOW THAT IS ALARMING!
I have sat with the teachers for hours sharing ideas and my experiences, they love it, and are amazed and inspired. However that is ONE school, and it is a fact that those educated here remain undereducated here for sure.
Teachers who have taught on the other side of the ´brown cheese curtain´are much easier to inspire and get on board.

Education of the teachers in a wide and varied, empowered environment is the key.

A very interesting subject! I’m a primary school teacher in the Netherlands and I recognise some of the issues described. When you compare our school system to for instance Finlands then I’m a bit ashamed. At the moment Dutch politics needs to cut back in almost everything and I believe they aren’t investing any more in good education.
I’m curious to know whether this equality in education in Norway sets through in secondary school. Do all the children go to the same secondary school or is there te opportunity to choose a level that fits their needs?

____________________from L-Jay:

When choosing High Schools it is never about levels but about subject/career paths. It is common for High School students to live away from home so they can study a specialist stream such as fishing at the Maritime High School in Tromsø. However, there is a huge problem with low graduation in Norway. It will be interesting presenting my findings to everyone.

This gets me worried! My ldr bf is training to be a teacher and while I admire the Norwegian way of how teachers are trained to handle students, i don’t know anything about the syllabus difficulty etc. but everything I’ve read by bloggers such as yourself say Norway’s education system is lacking… this gets me worried for myself/the children i wish to one day have with my bf.

____________________from L-Jay:

One of the biggest problems with teaching in Norway is that because teachers are employed by the kommune they can sit in a job for life without fear of being sacked. The kommune doesn’t sack people. This means that teachers don’t have to continually produce results (of course they need to try and get as many students to pass etc) but they don’t have to build a ‘student empire’ if they don’t want to. Because they can sit in their jobs til 65 there are so many outdated teachers consuming positions and stopping the ‘technological generation of teachers’ entering employment.

I look forward to your posts. I think the comment about the school not wanting you to teach writing and reading at home is interesting. I think it is actually a good idea. My children go to a Waldorf / Steiner school, and I have seen first hand that learning to read early does not help students get ahead and it is actually quite fine to wait. My children have gone to Waldorf schools in the US and in the Netherlands. In the NL, it is quite common for the schools to ask the parents to not do work at home as going to school is work enough.

______________________from L-Jay:

We don’t ‘work’ at home, we play. We play word games and read books and sing songs and look at words when we go shopping, etc – learning is a part of our daily lives. Just by simply playing with our children they are more advanced with reading and writing than children two years older than them at barnehagen. So it is very difficult for me to hear barnehagen staff saying ‘don’t teach your child’ because it is the same as saying don’t play, enjoy, or experience life with your child. We have children so we can experience the joy of teaching them all the wonderful things in this world – I’m not going to give that up to someone who is paid to babysit my child. But it seems a lot of Norwegians prefer for someone else to teach their children.

I think the thing that I cannot understand about Norwegian society is that they rely on, even expect, that the State is supposed to be the primary educator of children. I believe parents should be the primary educators. Parents teach with love and thoroughness, with patience and through natural interaction. (One of the reasons teachers don’t want parents teaching their own kids is because it is difficult in class when everyone is at the same level except for one student who is way above.)

There are a few Steiner schools in Norway too. From my research, normal schools in Norway cannot keep up with global competition, I don’t think Steiner school pupils would fare too well either. Having a creative and exam-less education is good while growing up but it doesn’t prepare kids for the real, hard, fast, competitive, world. And this is what is becoming a thorn in Norwegian education.

How does the NL fare in ‘quality’ education compared to the other OECD members?

Luckily for some people, there are schools that take better care of the most advanced students, but these tend to be in the bigger cities, and even there it’s not guaranteed. I remember getting pretty bored for quite a few years because most of the subjects moved ahead way too slow for me which led to me acquiring some pretty awful study habits. There are some parts of the education system I think works very well, among them (this is from personal observation and might not be the rule everywhere) helping avoid the weaker students from falling through the cracks.
The biggest weakness is the one you mentioned in this post, not challenging the brightest students and keeping them interested and engaged (though I’ve never heard of teachers suggesting the kid should try to learn slower), and as the world gets more and more globalized, that’s something the Norwegian education system really needs to improve

____________________from L-Jay:

A lot of Norwegians have told me that the education system does not carter for brighter students. They know this and don’t like this but yet the government is still pushing the ‘equality’ thing that everyone must have the same education. ‘Unified verses quality’ is the topic of my next post on the Norwegian education system. It is a background but I think it helps to understand what has gone wrong with the education here.

All I can say is it’s about time. The only thing that frustrates me more than how long it took them to realize it’s bad is having heard for the past 2 years how much more educated and cultured the Norwegian people think are than the rest of the world. It seems the only thing Norwegians are actually competitive at is turning a blind optimistically naive eye to their country. Every time my wife and I mention going back to the states they seem shocked and appalled that we don’t want our children educated in Norway (even though we don’t cite education as the primary reason). Hopefully this will be the wake up call for Norwegian society. They’re going to have to learn to compete the day the North Sea oil wells dry up even though they’re no better at admitting that N Sea oil is the reason they are no longer the 2nd poorest nation in Europe. Norwegian society in general needs a big wake up call and start realizing the standards that have been set on the world scene. (That are not created by the UK/US/etc “fudging numbers” lol).

____________________from L-Jay:

It is funny because Norwegians are well educated compared with other nations – it is because the education here is free. But free doesn’t mean quality. The Norwegian higher education had been a joke until the last ten years where the OECD would not approved their courses for international education. So Norway has recently raised the standard (and needs to do so still with many courses), however, now the standard is too high for High School students. High School students can get into uni on their high school grades but the level difference between High School and uni is so great that many Norwegians don’t complete uni (- they back down to høgskolen which is far less advanced even though they offer ‘degrees’). The thing that is keeping Norwegian uni graduate records up is all the graduating foreigners. This will be discussed later down the posting track ;).

The arts, music, sculpture, painting, dance, etc. have dissipated both here in Norway and back in my homeland of USA where one can find, however, sports and other mindless non-skill-building endeavors offered by the dozen along with video games that do not educate.

The creative, multi-level, analytical thought provoking arts, which also develop youths’ perceptions, interpretations and expressive abilities, seem to have no place in a modern world seeking to produce the same type of drones author Ray Bradbury presented in his 1953 work “Fahrenheit 451″ where society burned books and considered free-thinking to be abnormal.

Another problem I observed, when my daughter took saxophone lessons for a year after school, was the typical lack of discipline in the class itself. Yes, boys are unruly, but after one year our daughter had enough of music and decided not to attempt a second year even though the music program had decided to separate the 2 girls (now only one I assume) from the unruly boys – too little too late.

Fortunately, here in Norway we do not have the 8.5 hour workday accompanied with a 2.5 to 3.5 hour work commute to deal with year after year. We have more time as parents to expose our children to a variety of artistic avenues, without excessive pressure, to determine what our children might enjoy and excel in. We are also not bound in Norway, as my homeland is, by the financial limitations of ‘higher’ education at ‘elitist’ universities tuition expenses, which appear to cater to and ensure that only the wealthy get the best education and continue to dominate the business and political realms.

There are video games out there that do provide historical, mathematical and other learning avenues for youth AND offer level-advancing challenges as the competitors participate.

All we can do is our best as parents to help our children develop into ‘thinking’ and ‘analyzing’ adults that are questioners and not just followers. We can also maintain our attempts to better the educational system in Norway – thank you for your post and your effort!

“it is because the education here is free. But free doesn’t mean quality.”

Yeah that’s what I was meaning. It’s the quality that suffers in Norway in most sectors, not availability. Not to be too blunt or “politically incorrect” but the Nordic countries primary resource over the past half century has been a lack of “diversity” in the population. However those results don’t always translate into a apples to apples comparison of whats available between nations. Norways crime rate being a perfect example. The US has a crime rate that is like 4 times what it is per 100k people in Norway. But the reality is 80%+ of the crime committed in the US is by blacks and latinos. In fact 45% of federal prison inmates are latino and 78% of those are not US citizens. So if you stay away from the “ghetto” in the US you’re as likely or even less likely to be the victim of a crime than in Norway. Oslos crime rate is 4 times higher per capita than New York and I think anyone who’s ended up on the wrong side of Oslo knows why. I don’t think Norwegians realize it’s the same story in as in Oslo but all over England, the US, etc. They seem to think the “average” of their education system, healthcare system and crime rate is because it is the pinnacle of caucasian development. Yet despite their social and economic “strategies” they’re learning in places like Oslo that it doesn’t matter how available opportunity is some people just refuse to cease it.

The Norwegian healthcare system and education system is in the same category. Norwegians are convinced that their slightly higher “average” means superior when in fact it couldn’t be further from the truth. 80 4s and 20 1s come out to be 3.4 which is a lower average than 100 3.5s but it doesn’t give an accurate reflection of what is available to someone if they are willing to put in the time and effort to get the most from that which is available.

It’s funny you mention the graduating forgeigners thing though because I was recently at Stavanger university and was shocked at how few “full blood” Norwegian lol. Most of the students looked like immigrants. (although that is a little stereotyping but I think people know what I mean).

I just wanted to comment on this statement. Most of the successful CEOs in the US report having what they considered a “successful” sports career. IIRC it was something like 87% of them (don’t quote me though lol). Sports is not just about throwing a ball through a hoop. It teaches teamwork, it teaches people how to be competitive, to stay competent under pressure, how to execute a strategy/plan in a group and the benefits of hardwork and practice among many other things. Unfortunately many sports programs around the world don’t put enough emphasis on these benefits but I’ll take a football program over a painting class in school any day. Alot of the “finer arts” do nothing to develop a childs social skills, ability to work with others, or teach them to face adversity when the going gets tough. I both played sports in school and took piano and art classes. American football and basketball taught me alot more about how to keep a job, how to get promotions, how to interact with my peers and how to push a team of people to their full potential than drawing or playing piano ever did.

I’m all for the fine arts. In my ideal world every child is proficient in at least one sport, one musical instrument, one foreign language and at least one creative craft like sculpting to drawing to carpentry by the time they graduate high school.

–We are also not bound in Norway, as my homeland is, by the financial limitations of ‘higher’ education at ‘elitist’ universities tuition expenses, which appear to cater to and ensure that only the wealthy get the best education and continue to dominate the business and political realms.–

Have you put a child through college in Norway yet? The thing is my wife told me college is paid for in Norway and I was starry eyed and bushy tailed at the idea of that But then when her parents turned 50 she told me they were glad to have paid off their student loans and it him me, the bulk of my wife and my own expenses in college were for rent, an automobile, food, other non school oriented expenses. Tuition and books ended up being very little of the cost and that is just the same in Norway. sure you save that 2k a semester or whatever it would cost but that’s only a fraction of your expenses.

People also tend to assume that these expensive and prestiged universities in the US would exist if the gov ran them and made them free but that is incorrect. I know for fact that the US dominates the top 50 universities list in the world. I think more than half of those top 50 are in the US. Norway doesn’t have a single university in the top 100.

The reason these prestigous universities exist in the US is because they can be selective and charge so much. Harvard and Yale wouldn’t be some of the worlds top universities if they survived on a government budget like Oslo or Stavanger university.

So while I wish these types of educations were available to everyone the truth is the only way to make them available to everyone would cause destroy them.

____________________from L-Jay:

I stumbled across ‘top university rankings’ (I think on wiki) and it said that Norway did not approve to be part of the ranking surveys. There is one reason why – they’d likely place at the bottom! lol. I think if you want a good education that would be recognized internationally, don’t study in Norway.

One thing I’ve also discovered is that Norway uses the term ‘international’ too freely, especially when boasting about courses. It is common for Norway to work with Russia, Finland and Sweden (the Barents region countries) and call whatever they collaborate on ‘international’. (It is like saying the English and the Scottish working together is ‘international collaboration’…lol) It makes it sound big and important but in actuality it is usually just the very small Arctic cities sending one or two people over to a very small conference, festival or discussion, across the border. ‘International’ is subjective in Norway…lol.

ZIP you should look up the word “janteloven” and do some research on that concept. It’s a Scandinavian but primarily Norwegian concept of “equality”. The romanticized Norwegian version of janteloven is that if you’re human you’re just as valuable as anyone else. Which is how I try to view the world. However in practice in Norwegian society janteloven is more of a ” you are not allowed to achieve more than me or have higher standards than me cause then I’ll feel insecure” attitude towards the progress of others. Free thinking and individuality in Norway is a popular concept there, as long as you don’t actually practice either of them actively. Being here for multiple years now I’ve grown more and more curious about why all that oil money hasn’t gone towards progressing things like classes/courses for the gifted and talented and I don’t like the answers I’m getting. I also had to question why an intelligent and successful British business man might be more frowned upon in Norwegian society than a 3rd world immigrant and unfortunately the answer appears to be a 3rd world immigrant isn’t competition. Alot of the components of Norwegian society are driven by insecurity masked by what appears to be arrogance to an outsider.

Until Norwegians (not all mind you but enough that it’s a noticeable part of the culture) are ready to set aside their egos and insecurities and let talented people push their limits unhindered then their society is going to continue to suffer from sub-par performance.

I suspect a lot of the problem can be laid at the door of Reform-94, the 1994 reform of the education system. It seems to have proceeded from the assumption that all children are blank slates, and if you subject them through a lot of theory, they will come out as academics. Instead, the result was a high dropout rate aming the practically inclined. Prior to reform-94, the Norwegian education still did not look after the bright students very well, but was otherwise considered fair too good internationally. Today, only the NTNU enginerring and UiO maintian any kind of international top 100 standard.

I am not sure the Finninsh system is the way to go though. It produces school shootings and is generally derimental to the production of emtionally even-keeled individuals. Too high a price for the results, I suspect.

_____________________from L-Jay:

We’ll be looking at the 94 and 97 reforms in later posts. And the standard of university education here in Norway has an interesting story.

“A lot of my research is actually from reports and stats from other areas of Norway such as Bergen and Stavanger. Even though I am an Arts teacher, Moose is a Maths and Science teacher so I think I get a good perspective (it always drove him nuts that the school always chose to have swimming during his science class time…lol).”

As a French teacher in a middle school in Bergen, I’ve seen the same kind of crazy choices – some of my pupils in 10. klasse, who are going to have an exam in French in less than two months, had completely disappeared from my class, and after waiting several weeks for an answer from their “kontaktlærere” to know what had happened to them, I was told they were following what they call “Nygiv” (you can read about it here: http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/kd/campaign/ny-giv—new-possibilities.html?id=632025). After 9 weeks, they suddenly reappeared, they didn’t know themselves that they would come back, and they’re supposed to manage to catch up more than two months of French class all by themselves…
As true as it is that NyGiv can be a good thing (whatever – anything can be good), it doesn’t make sense to prevent those kids from following a course when they’ll have to take an exam in it and have to continue it 3 more years! Especially when the program is supposed “to increase successful completion in Upper Secondary Education”…!
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. This class of mine had had French in two years, and after hesitating to believe them when they told me they’d learned nothing with their previous teachers, I realized – pain! – how true it was. They couldn’t say ‘no’ or ‘yes’, ‘hello’ or ‘my name is’. Some of them did say it in Spanish…
Even more than having bad teachers, they have teachers who don’t even know about their subject. Their previous teacher was a nurse who felt like trying a new career I guess, and decided to teach French… It was not even a secret, he told me so and didn’t seem to have any bad conscience about not knowing the subject he was paid for teaching.
Allright – Norway lacks French teachers (to take the example of a subject). Then why in the world do they think it’s ok to offer the subject to those kids? Better to have them all learn German than pretending to give them a proper teaching in French, especially because they’re going to feel pain when starting videregående skole and realizing they know nothing compared to others.

And just to take another incredible example: when I applied for different French teaching jobs in different middle and high schools, I got offered several times to teach Norwegian – apparently, the fact that I’m a native French speaker and had been living in Norway for 3 years only at the time and had an accent though it was weak, since I’d learned Norwegian as an adult, wasn’t a problem at all. I did already have my Masters in Norwegian, but God don’t they see the difference between having a Masters in Norwegian as a foreign language and being good for the job of teaching kids / adults in their own language? I can’t even understand all of the things they say… And that’s the argument they had: ‘But you have a Masters in Norwegian!’…

To me, that’s a big part of the problem: teachers shouldn’t be allowed to teach 3, 4 or 5 subjects. Maybe very few of us are able to do so, but I would think those who are have another kind of career than teaching in schools. It’s not about forbidding it, rather making it the norm to teach only one subject.

____________________from L-Jay:

In regards to nygiv – I think it is an example of how Norway creates obscure jobs to employ more people. But to make a national project just to raise competency by just 5%? Boy, there is no aiming high there…lol. Nygiv is too little too late. Yes, Norway has to fix its mistakes but not with another un-researched program that wastes time and resources. Do they know if nygiv is productive and actually works? Have they done a proper trial study first before trying to implement this nation wide so quickly. This same track is the reason why Norway is in the educational mess in the first place. Where is the education in education these days? Well, when the project finishes in 2013 they will have to think of a new way to keep all those ‘officers’ employed.

I get the same thing in dance – students don’t turn up to class and therefore don’t learn performance choreographies and then complain that I won’t let them be in the performance. They tell their parents who contact the school to complain. They don’t understand that a dancer has to know the choreography before they can perform it…lol. It’s a little crazy. One parent said to my face that their daughter’s dancing isn’t ‘art’ because he has seen real art – a ballet once… on TV…lol.

My kommune has had a change of government late last year and they have been trying to squish the arts even further because the kommune is in a lot of dept. They actually wanted to assign an observer to each teacher to make sure we were working the right amount for our wages. (They think we are slackers.) So I made a documentary film over three weeks that showed everything I do – they were shocked to say the least at how much I work to produce the dance program at the kulturskole. Now the kommune is thinking twice about how they treat the arts and because of the Bamford report they are now trying to make amendes. I have full day meetings this week with the kulturskole staff and the kommune to work out the ‘direction’ of the kulturskole and art in Alta. It will be very interesting indeed.

—I get the same thing in dance – students don’t turn up to class and therefore don’t learn performance choreographies and then complain that I won’t let them be in the performance. They tell their parents who contact the school to complain. They don’t understand that a dancer has to know the choreography before they can perform it…lol. It’s a little crazy. —-

LJay do you have a theory/hypothesis for why this attitude is so apparent in Norway? Does it start at home with parenting? Is it a school thing? I have seen so many situations in Norway where someone didn’t put in the time but wanted the “rewards”. Especially in situations where a group/team is dependent on them. I actually expected to see quite the opposite in Norway. Hearing things like the neighbors have to sign an approval for you to build a house in the neighborhood made me expect Norwegians to have this extremely overdeveloped sense of team or group mentality/awareness, but quite frankly Norwegians who don’t mind a free ride on the backs of a group/organization seem to be the norm. Many times Norwegians opinions/ideals have confused me about everything from simple group participation to politics and I for the life of me could not make a connection to the logic they were using to come to their conclusion(s). I think after a couple years the best way I have come to associate with it is a “just because I don’t show up for futball practices doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to play as much as everyone else in a game” kind of attitude. I had to unwire my British/US inspired way of thinking: “if you don’t like the way someone is digging a hole then grab yourself a shovel”, to allow myself to even understand their position on a lot of things.

____________________from L-Jay:

It plagues me too. This is one of the nuances of Norwegian society that is so subtle and requires a lot of investigative detection to notice it as a Norwegian character but it also highlights the different ideologies between Norwegians and English-speakers. We should not take it for granted that not all Western countries have the same idea on how one should think about general values and ethics.

Norway has been founded on ‘equality’ ideals. Not the good equality where everyone is different but is valued and has the same opprotunities. It is the ‘other’ equality where everything has to be the same and everyone gets the same no matter what. Considering the football analogy (and my dance analogy above) – everyone has to be given the same practice time and the same play time for everything to be equal (but Norwegians understand that they don’t have to take it if they don’t want to – they can take less but never more). So Norwegians want/expect the same as everyone else whether they use it or not – the same opportunity is offered to everyone regardless of effort – that is the Norwegian way. (I think this is very wasteful.) Whereas English-speakers work with a reward system – if you practice then you can play – the opportunity only develops according to the effort given by the individual. The ‘effort’ is what English-speakers value. For instance, I do not select the best dancers for performances, I select the students who make the effort. (And I get a lot of Norwegian parents who don’t understand this way of thinking. They think ‘why should a student get more opportunity because they put in more effort’?) Rewards are non-existant in Norway because there are no tests. No tests mean no solid level of achievement. Norway believes tests mean setting people apart – the ‘winners’ and the ‘losers’. Norway doesn’t want ‘losers’ so they don’t allow ‘winners’.

Also, Norwegians don’t participate individually, only as a group. Now a ‘group’ is much different from a ‘team’. A team is organised, has a leader and each person functions in a different role for the success of the team. A group has no leader, has no structure, has no clear work method and therefore is not designed to achieve. (One of the reasons why Norwegians like groups so much is that it is more democratic than a team – the romantic idea of ‘democracy’ is big in Norway.) A group means that everyone has to have the same responsibility (suiting Norwegians just fine). Norwegians don’t want more responsibility than someone else, but they are quite happy to get the same (and even happier to get less). This ‘same’ type of equality is connected to the Norwegian idea of ‘fairness’. Norwegians understand it is not fair for someone to get more no matter the effort put in whether that be more or less. Unfortunately, ‘same-equality’ encourages everyone to do less as you don’t have to do more to get the same as everyone else. In life, Norwegians don’t achieve to get more, they achieve to get the same…lol. This way of thinking is about raising everyone up to the bar. English-speakers use the bar as a platform to jump higher.

Well, that is my take on it.

I think this idea has developed from the influence of socialist and communist Europe in the early 1900s when Norway was deciding what kind of country it wanted to be. They romanticised ‘equality’ and it became a national persona. Norwegians pride themselves on it now. However, the idea of equality has changed over the last 50 years. Equality isn’t as simple as the ‘same’ anymore. It has developed into a more mature idea of ‘opportunity’ and ‘freedom’. However, Norway has only kept the old idea of equality – ‘sameness’. This has been ingrained through policy and is certainly implemented in every stage of schooling. As an example the Kindergarten Act says one of the ‘purposes of kindergartens is to promote democracy and equality and counteract all forms of discrimination’.

Hi, love your blog, especially how you try and balance the positive and negative aspects of Norway; however, the negative aspects tend to hit home a bit more! I’m a Canadian dating a Norwegian and just completing an anthropology master’s degree in Norway so really trying to decide whether to stay in Norway (as was the original plan when I moved here 2 years ago) or head back to Canada. I’ve always liked the idea of what Norway can offer for raising a family here, but the lack of music in school and the low quality of education really worries me. You hit the nail when talking about the problem of the equality being above all else and difference being looking down upon. Janteloven has got to be the hardest part of living in Norway and I’m just wondering how you were able to get past it/adapt to it? It always seems here that being passionate about something or having unique interests and skills is looked down upon rather than praised. I feel that both myself and my Norwegian partner’s greatest contribution to society is our passion and unique skills but I don’t know if constantly going against the grain will be worth it. Was it worth it for you?

____________________from L-Jay:

It is certainly worth it. I’m really grateful that I have an Australian drive living in Norway because it makes me stand out from the rest without doing anything I wouldn’t normally do back home…lol. It doesn’t take much to impress here. I think my background balances out what Norway is missing – like my idea of education. I’ve grown up in Australia knowing that you are responsible for educating yourself. That means for me that even though Norwegian education isn’t up to scratch, I am responsible for my children’s education, not the state, and so I’ll be greatly helping my children be better than the education offered in Norway. It is a perk for my children having a parent who isn’t ‘Norwegianized’. They can benefit from my Australian experience.

I think when it comes down to whether you should live in Norway or your home country is about what you want to value in life. For example: I like how Norway doesn’t centre around work but ‘free time’. And I want that value in my life. In fact, in Australia you are always told to slow down otherwise you will burn yourself out. I don’t think Norwegians have to worry about that and I don’t want to worry about that either. Norway is about play, not work – I like that.

Hello. My husband is an expatriate engineer in Stavanger and he is planning that we migrate there. He boasts of the kind of work environment and lifestyle Norwegians enjoy, that includes free education. The plan is to send my son to kindergarten somewhere in Stavanger. After all your revelations, it worries me too. Is the same old uncompetitive system evident in international schools? Because from where I am, a lot of schools have used the word “international” in their names because it sort of exalt them from the rest, without really offering quality education. It still boils down to the fact that schools are business enterprises. Another thing is, are international schools covered by the so-called “free education”? I look forward to your reply. Thank you in advance.

____________________from L-Jay:

A lot of international schools are private and ‘private’ usually means there are fees. I would contact the schools in the area – most have websites you can look at.

Hi,
I have read with interest all your comments relating to educational standards in Norway and whilst I appreciate the obvious frustrations I am also a little bemused by your concerns. Now I may have been misled, but as a teacher in the UK I am always looking at different ways of improving my practice for my pupils. I specialise in working with low attaining readers and literacy skills in general. To that end I researched over 80 countries focussing on their literacy levels nationally. To date I have only found 3 countries with a literacy level of 100% nationally. One of them is the Vatican City ( so can be discarded) and the other two are Norway and Finland. Now that makes me think that despite whatever misgivings and frustrations you are having that perhaps as a country you are in fact getting the basics right. Our literacy levels in the UK are in decline and perhaps it can be blamed on the exact same hierarchical society that you allege to pursue. As a parent I do become frustrated if my child is held back in school but if I knew that our schools had a proven record of producing 100% literate pupils at the end of their journey through the establishment then I think I would snap your hands off. I wish you luck in your pursuit of your goals but be careful of what you wish for – it most likely will not be better than you have already and might even be worse.

____________________from L-Jay:

Around 50% fail High School in Norway and 40% fail university – every year in the paper they publish these staggering figures. It is comprehension, competence and work ethic that is lacking in Norwegian students. So 100% literacy doesn’t mean that a student will complete high school in Norway. I think that is tragic.